


These, our bodies, possessed by light

by uponthenorthernshore



Category: Poldark (TV 2015), Poldark - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 23:21:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14924783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uponthenorthernshore/pseuds/uponthenorthernshore
Summary: Written before 4x01: Ross reckons with his marriage, the day after Demelza and Hugh’s tryst, inspired by the recent images of Ross looking at Demelza/Hugh on the beach in a dream.





	These, our bodies, possessed by light

Ross gathered her into his arms with an urgency that startled even him, desperate suddenly - no matter the anger and the fear that simmered below the surface - desperate to have her in his arms. **  
**

Demelza’s eyes closed soon after a shuddering sigh, settling into her husband’s chest, the _thumpthumpthump_ of his heart slowing as she drew nearer. She was tired - weary to the bone and her racing thoughts could not keep her awake. He lay in the cold silence of the room, the warm, flickering candlelight casting shadows that refused to be lit. It was nearly a soothing rhythm - the sounds of his life: Demelza’s soft sighs as she slept, Jeremy’s tossing and turning, Clowance’s little snuffles and his heart could break from the weight of it. This life - so precious and yet so fragile. He shifted from sleep to nightmares to a wide eyed awakening. 

He watched the sun as it began to creep in, the rays shimmering among Demelza’s hair, trailing along and finding the gold and copper strands in her wild and precious mane. He watched her sleep, her eyes moving under the eyelids belying a peaceful sleep and he was struck with a feeling so intense that it brought a cry to his throat. He could not look at this woman - this stranger - when she woke. He could not hear her voice or feel her touch - it would bring him to ruin.

The feeling became an intoxication as he slid out of bed - his footsteps silent. His stupor took him as far as the beach and the chilled water on his legs was the first thing he noticed. The waves lapped at him, calling him, pulling him and entreating him. And the notion became a compulsion - to feel the frigid water around him, under him, over him, to feel the bite of the cold.

He unbuttoned his shirt slowly - he could not do anything else. As it had while he waited for Demelza to return the night before, time had become heavy and unforgiving, choked with his waiting.

“Hugh!” He heard the word suddenly and without preamble, and it was followed by a sound that had lived so long in his heart, that had burrowed itself into the deepest corners of his chest - Demelza’s laugh. Sultry without intent, beguiling without any forethought and musical in its beauty.

Time continued to trickle, her laugh echoing - god that beautiful sound that had been his salvation, his balm at the close of so many days. He felt himself turn before he thought to do so and there was his wife. She burned in the sun, her hair alight in its morning flame and her body - his body - pressed up against Armitage’s.

He felt himself in the slow stupor that possessed him and he could not scream her name or his. Could not tell this man to step away from his wife. He could not call to her and beg her to come to him. Ross had killed men before. It was not a welcome thought, not after the war, not in his dreams. But it became a balm in this moment, that he could do what needed to be done because he had done so for so much less than this.

Demelza’s eyes would not leave his, boring into him while a cruel and twisted smirk remained on her face.

“Look what you’ve done,” said the smile. “Look what you’ve made me do.” He could only watch as Armitage’s hands tightened around her waist, pulling her closer, drawing a sound he had never heard. Ross had heard every sound Demelza could make, from breathy moans in his bed to wild cries in their darkest days to sweet teasing laughs at his expense. Yet he had never heard this, a cruel and sharp laugh - mocking him, taunting him, shaking him out of his reverie.

No, no, no matter what Demelza had done, she would never be cruel. Cruelty so against her nature as to be impossible that he knew it was a dream as he woke from it, gasping and shaking, his chest cold with sweat and the hammering of his heart audible in the silence of the room Demelza had filled for years with love and flowers and the intimacies of marriage.

The sun had risen entirely as he woke, the shimmering heat of the day beginning to creep into the room. Ross realized with a start that he was entirely alone in the bed.

For a brief, wrenching heartbeat, Ross thought that Demelza’s return too had been a dream. His chest tightened painfully until he saw his children were no longer in the cot he had pulled into the room the night before, wanting them near him, needing them where he could watch them. The sheets  were folded and their comforting night toys placed upon their pillows as Demelza always left them. His breath was ragged still, and he came to the sudden, unwelcome realization for the first time in his life of feeling unwelcome in his own house.

It was not until he walked down the steps, haltingly entering the kitchen that he could breathe again. The sounds of his house, of his life surrounding him, pulling him in, grounding him to the Earth. Jeremy was shrieking in laughter as he pulled faces at a concerned Clowance, his younger babe safely ensconced in her mother’s arms.

And there was his wife, as real as she could be. Ross was hyper aware of her, her eyes seemed to shine brightly and he could smell violets and rosemary - she’d been in her garden.

“Will you go to the mine today?” Demelza asked between the choruses of “Papa, look!” and Clowance’s babbling. Her tone belied none of the fear she felt, none of the heartbreak she thought was clear in her voice. Her voice rang out to him clear as a bell and he could not remember why he felt as if he must run away, even in his dream.

Then Ross saw the dress, was it truly blue and green like another from so long ago, hanging on the line. She must have washed it first thing in the morning, for she had fallen asleep in it, and he had felt it on his skin like a brand. He would burn the dress, he thought.

“No, no,” and Ross’s voice broke so softly, Demelza flinched. He cleared his throat and looked at her “I have things to take care of around the house.” And it wasn’t a threat, but Demelza’s guilt transmuted the words into an accusation and she looked away from him, her face buried in Clowance’s sweet, comforting smell.

Ross knew, intuited, that he must stay home today. He felt, perhaps, that he was defending what was his and to leave, even for an hour, would be unforgivable.

So home he stayed, his little children a distraction - soothing in their love and affection. They were not used to leisure with their Papa and they made the most of him, climbing all over him as he sat and tugging on his sleeves. Later, he had taken both of them to the barn, wild animals they were, where he could watch Demelza churning butter in the garden. His thoughts ran over him like water, slipping between his mind and eroding other fleeting thoughts.

He watched this woman, his woman, and she was at once as familiar as his bones and yet a stranger to him. He was overcome with need to pull her close or to swill her under the tap as he had done her first day, to wash her clean and bring her back. To scrub her clean of what she had done. He felt an anger so acute, like an itch on his skin.

“And how do you think she felt, all those months ago?” Even the voices in Ross’s head had turned against him, then. How should a husband feel then? Jealous and injured? Or inadequate and angry? Why did his throat tighten at every other fleeting thought?

Ross felt a small nudge, a thump against his own heart and it was Clowance’s little head, his little sweet babe, asleep already in the space of seconds. He gathered her in his arms and it was a pang and a comfort to think that she was already far heavier than Julia would ever be.

“Is she asleep then?” And why was Demelza’s voice such a surprise today? Perhaps because he truly thought her lost the night before. The cruelly and coldly calculating voice in his head knew that she had nowhere else to go but there was a stronger, pained voice that needled him - telling him she could go to Verity’s or Dwight’s or Armitage’s without another word.

He nodded his assent and they bustled their children, Jeremy beginning to yawn, into their own little room and they did not meet each other’s eyes. Their hands touched briefly as they lay their children down but neither of them reacted for what was there to say? He watched his children sleep, their little bodies warming in the afternoon sun and it pulled at his heart. Demelza had chosen this room for Jeremy when he was old enough to sleep without her near, for it glowed with the morning sun and lit Jeremy’s soft face each morning when she entered. Without their laughter and cries and small voices, the house felt empty. Demelza must have sent Prudie away for he had not seen her this morning.

Perhaps she felt, as Ross did, that they could not bear another person in the house today. Or perhaps she could not look Prudie in the eye, Ross knew that feeling too.

He trailed behind Demelza, his thoughts bumping against each other, crowding his mind.

“Perhaps I should rest this afternoon too,” Demelza said with a lightness she could not have felt. “I’m that tired this morning.”

“I imagine you are.” And there it was. It had been said and he could not take it back. Not his words and not the edge in his voice that accompanied them. She had a queer look on her face but she did not respond. He thought perhaps he had no right to this anger but it was here now and they would have it out for better or for worse. “May I still ask you no questions, Demelza?”

The silence grew, pushing Demelza to sit on the bed, her eyes trained on the ground as if there were answers to his questions to be found there.

“May I ask my wife what she has done? Where the hell you have been?” He repeated and it was at the word wife that he saw her break, the tears falling from her eyes and he was powerless to stop them.

“Oh, Ross.” Her voice was a knife to his heart but he did not move. He did not wipe her tears away nor did he comfort her. The deepest, darkest parts of his mind had wanted those tears all morning, wanted her to suffer as he suffered.

“Will you be here long then, Demelza? Or shall I help you pack your things?” Those words echoed in the room and from months ago in the same moment. The cruelty in his voice was a hot iron, burning even him in its intensity. But she did not look at him and the desire to grab her, to force her to meet his eyes was so overwhelming, he had to clench his fists to stay still.

“Will you leave, Demelza?” And here Ross’s own voice broke, this question was not cruel, not needling. He knew the answer, the calculating voice said, but he needed her answer desperately, the words from her own mouth.

“Oh Ross, never.” And she met his eyes at that, tears falling openly as she pled with him, silent and desperate. He moved towards her in two long strides and his mouth captured hers. His arms gripped her shoulders so tightly, she knew there would be bruises but they were comforting in their grip, in their intensity. He kissed her deeply, his mouth working against hers and his hands buried in her hair. He had pushed her onto the bed, her hips pinned by his and he could not read her face as she looked up at him. He could read the desire and the sadness but her eyes were clouded and unfocused.

“Demelza.” He said it softly, he said it as a prayer. Her eyes met his and she smiled softly, forgetting perhaps in this moment, while laying in their bed, surrounded in his smell, his arms around her. Her mouth sought his again and he took it, one hand pushing her hair from her face and the other, a broad hand spanning her waist.

Ross felt, for a moment, drunk on her. Drunk on the feeling of his wife, in his arms and in his bed, returned to him, safely. His caught her lower hip in his and he could feel her smile beneath his mouth. Ross grabbed her hips and in one movement, a gasp from Demelza, reversed their positions. She was straddling him now and there could be no doubt as to what he wanted, she could feel him pressing up against her. Her skirt was hiked around him, their bodies separated still by layers of clothes but he could feel her - hot and burning for him. She ground against him, impatient already, and he pulled her close, his lips on hers again.

He felt a sudden desire to mark this woman and his lips sought her neck, suckling a mark onto it where anybody - where he - would be able to see. He could feel it blooming under his lips and she moaned, canting her hips into his and he froze. This is what Armitage felt the night before, the pull of her lips, the smell of her arousal, the feeling of her pressing against him. He felt a wave of hatred - for him but for her too, perhaps - so strong, it made him dizzy, bile in his throat and he pulled her away. His arms pushing her away until she was standing in front of him, her knees shaking and her hair wild from his hands.

He would be sick, he was sure of it, the nausea rising in him. Ross had realized it with a start, the thought that had been brimming all night, bleeding into the daylight. He was no longer the only man who had known Demelza, known her touch and the sounds she made in her pleasure or the way her face looked when it was sated.

And it became a mantra in his head - he was no longer the only one. Armitage had seen it, he had taken something from him, taken what was not his to take. And the feeling, the anger and the pain grew within Ross and an awful voice in his head taunted him he’s felt so much more than that, Poldark. His cock has been inside your wife, felt her clench around it, his hands on her breasts, his lips on hers and his- Together they had had everything and now she had flung it all away. Almost without a thought spared for what she was spoiling, perhaps forever.

“Ross,” her voice called for him and he was a thousand miles away until she clenched his hands, her pale skin turning white from her grip but she did not let go. “Ross, will you take me to bed?” she asked it simply, her voice had no hesitation in it.

“Undress, Demelza,” he said, his voice wavering and he could weep or he could scream and he knew not which he wanted to do. “Undress for me.” His tone became more certain and she hesitated. He nodded at her, laying back on the bed, watching her carefully and without betraying his thoughts. So she did. She untied the dress, pulling it apart as he pulled down his breeches, palming his cock as he watched. When she stood in her shift, her feet bare and her hair falling around her, Demelza opened her mouth as if to ask a question.

“I said undress,” he said roughly but she didn’t flinch. She pulled down her shift, revealing each inch of her skin, known to him like his own, until she stood bare and naked in front of him. He stood up quickly, he felt if he hesitated that the thoughts that burned in his mind would spill out and they could never be taken back. He pulled her to him, his shirt roughly brushing against her nipples, drawing a gasp from her.

She needed him so badly - needed to drive away the look in his eyes and to feel him inside her. He pushed her on the bed, his hands never leaving her hips and he pressed against her.

“I must have you now, but I will stop if you ask,” he said it softly, and she heard in his voice a thousand things but most of all a desperation to be wanted.

"Don’t stop, Ross. I need you,” and her sentence had barely left her lips before he thrust inside her because he could not take another moment without her around him, her breath hitching as he was pressed himself inside her completely. He moved in her roughly - and he worried he would not give her pleasure in his haste, in his need, but she writhed under him, her eyes rolling in the back of her head and her desire so evident, he felt it spreading against him. He drew his cock from her entirely, thrusting in sharply when she looked up at him questioningly.

“Look at me,” he said, his lips beside her ear and his hands on her, grabbing and pulling and she did not know what he needed but she would give him anything in this moment.

“I love you,” she said but it seemed to turn him away, turn him inwards, his eyes shifting away. And she thought, perhaps there was no room for love yet, that this was only about wanting and possessing and she knew the desire of that. “I can feel you so deep inside, Ross. So full of you,” she said and knew it was right because his lips took hers and he ground into her, a moan leaving his lips.

“Say my name,” and Ross had meant it to be a command but he was nearly crying now, and the words left him filled with sadness. She could not begrudge him, not his anger nor his tears, and she wanted desperately to give him this, give him anything.

“Ross, Ross, take me as you need, I am yours, Ross,” she said, and it was a vow and a promise, once broken perhaps, but it was a vow she had taken for life.

“Mine,” he ground out, his hips stuttering and he knew he would not last. “Mine,” he repeated and he reached a hand between them, a thumb to her writhing hips, seeking her clit and grinding against it. She bloomed, a warm light exploding around them instantly as if she had been waiting for his touch and her cries were not only that of pleasure.

She tightened around him, a hiss of pleasure followed by a ragged moan, drawing him deeper in, her legs wrapping around his and he roared his own pleasure, his seed spilling in her, and she imagined it was so hot that it would scald her.

He lay on her, his breath uneven, until he became conscious of his own weight, sliding off her to lay next to her.

Demelza lay silent, her body shuddering in the glow of her release and tears falling from her eyes without even her own notice.

Ross took her hand, clasping her fingers against his chest so she could feel his heart and wished she could know that it was for her - each beat and thump belonged to her if she would have him.

But he felt a chasm grow between them, despite the nearness of their bodies, despite the intimacy of their joining. There was anger, towards her, towards him, towards himself most of all because had he not caused this in his own, thoughtless way? Weeks, months even of inattention, of pushing her away, of forgetting her needs, of keeping his secrets and still, though they pretended it gone, the memory of that night at Trenwith and the child that nobody would speak of.

His breathing slowed and hers followed - attuned as she was to his every movement today.

Their children cried out, first Jeremy’s questioning “Mama?” and then Clowance’s scream and she stood up with a sigh. They were not used to dividing her attention during the day, their father so rarely at home while it was light out. She pulled her dress up and began to relace it, pulling it around her like armor she needed but Ross’s on her bare shoulder stilled her.

“I’ll do it,” he whispered, taking the laces from her fingers and gently pulling her close. She watched his face as he tied them and lay her hand on his cheek, grizzled and rough. He gently turned his mouth and kissed her palm. There was so much to say still - fights to be had and tears to be shed but in this moment, her hand under his lips, her body between his knees - this would be enough.

Another of Clowance’s cries brought him to attention and he whispered, “we’ll take them to the beach. I’ll get them, pack a lunch.” She would have had to strain to hear him, his voice so low and quiet but she was standing so close and every part of her body listening to his.

Later, he sat in the grass as the fading light of the day lit the world in gold, falling on Jeremy between Demelza’s legs and on Clowance in his lap, on Garrick chasing rabbits, his barks echoing in the wind off the ocean. He realized then, perhaps for the first time it was vividly clear to him, what his night at Trenwith had brought them. What he had nearly lost. What he had done to Demelza - the gravity of it foreign to him until she had done the same.

And here they sat, the Poldarks of Nampara, on a bright summer day, on the grass of their land, having burst into flames and having been extinguished in equal measure. They looked at each other then and knew the embers still remained. 

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from Richard Siken’s poem, “Scheherazade”
> 
> Other lines and allusions pulled from Winston Graham and from the show.


End file.
